I can see where conceptual poets get inspiration for mechanical, matrix-y, hardwired forms. Writing is hinged on mechanisms of syntax and human-made order, so much so that we get to the point where writing is writing and nothing else. Or else it is so much ‘writing’ that it becomes something else entirely, something aside from a tool for sharing language.
In the same way, a lot of writing harnesses the power of practical communication to make a point.
Sometimes, I look at a page of text and think, What am I looking at? Who is speaking here? Is anybody actually alive in this thing? How is this anything other than what everything else is?
I think the structures of things like Christian Bok’s work and even confessional poets are things that result from agreed upon, but arbitrary constraints we have for how language is supposed to work on the page. Cool. Their work will probably lead to how we get a.i. to speak and feel, but that’s beside the point.
Speech is restricted on the page but I think it should be free.
Grammarians, or who(m)ever, will have you believe that unless you use whom instead of who for a direct object that you are inadequate and not actually communicating, that you are only somewhat human. Those people never try to communicate across languages without a sense of their accepted, arbitrary restrictions. They never consider how difficult it is to use forms with limited experience and knowledge of someone else’s happenstance and how freeing it is to use feeling, intuition and a sense of collective humanity to communicate instead.
FASCISTS OUT!
In the end, I think that the life in language and communication is more important than what we think about how we think it operates. That is where the most amazing creative expressions occur.
“Organix,” by the way, is from the title of The Roots album. If you like good music 😉 try it.
Dan Dorman 